Customer loyalty top of the agenda

Since the onset of the global financial crisis customer loyalty has become a priority issue for all businesses.

This is the view of Bruce Temkin, author of the Temkin Group report Customer Experience Correlates to Loyalty, who says that customer experience management has changed dramatically in the last few years.

With customers difficult to find in the more restrained economic climate, it is more important than ever for online businesses to retain the consumers they already have.

"If firms lose pace with competitors' customer experience, they may end up attenuating the negative impact of the economic downturn," he explained.

This appears to be getting through to the business community, with a recent Customer Management Exchange survey showing that encouraging loyalty is a main objective for two-thirds of customer experience managers.